A first look at the dubious “SAVE GRAND AVENUE!” website, created by someone who thinks that ship hasn’t already sailed

Right now, I’m not in the mood to reinvent the bicycle, e-scooter, bus, car, or truck wheel when talking about a Complete Streets project. So if you’re not already hip to the drama that’s been going on with the Grand Avenue traffic safety project in West Town, please do me a favor and read the intro to this recent post about what seemed to be the end of that story. And then peruse the last portion of yesterday’s post about the similar soap opera (telenovela?) that’s been going on with Archer Avenue in Brighton Park, which also mentions a possible spanner in the works for the Grand plan.

But in a nutshell, the latest development in West Town is that the Grand Avenue Committee opposition group has announced it’s following the lead of its Southwest Side siblings the Archer Guardians by holding weekly protests on Mondays from 4 to 6 p.m. Fortunately, just like in Brighton Park, sustainable transportation fans are planning to hold competing rallies.

The kingpin of the “This is not Grand!” naysayers is one of the Chicago Livable Streets movement’s most colorful antagonists, Roger Romanelli. He’s the executive director, and sole employee, of the Fulton Market Association nonprofit. Despite living in west-suburban Hillside, IL, where he ran for mayor in 2021, Romanelli often intervenes in urban transportation matter. Most notably, protests he played a major role in blocking Chicago’s promising Ashland Avenue bus rapid transit initiative. For these reasons, my personal nickname for him is “The Hillside Strangler of Sustainable Transportation Projects.”

Now, I certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of slandering, I mean libeling, Romanelli, so while the “SAVE GRAND AVENUE!” website appears to have his fingerprints on it, I can’t say for sure that he helped create it. It does look slightly more professional than his rather quaint website for the Fulton Market Association, but in many ways the vibe is similar to Romanelli’s anti-Ashland BRT crusade.

The website features a very long and rather tortured document, “Grand Ave. Reconstruction Compromise: A Community-Driven Plan” that I simply don’t have the patience to wade through at the moment. If any Streetsblog Chicago readers in the urban planning field are interested in taking a deep dive into this muck and writing an analysis of it, I’d be happy to run it as a guest post.

First of all, it’s silly to claim that this dubious proposal is a “community-driven” in contrast to the plan for Grand that already has a construction contract. Before this Chicago Department of Transportation initiative CDOT held two well-attended public meetings where residents provided feedback and largely express support.

Moreover, the Grand Avenue Committee’s watered-down “compromise” proposal strong reminds me of the watered-down BRT alternative Romanelli’s “Ashland-Western Coalition” floated with the Orwellian name “Modern Express Bus” service. Among the other questionable aspects of that scheme was a proposal for onboard “bus marshals” on each run to deter crime and assist customers, which would have roughly doubled labor costs.

Again, I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole with the brain-numbing “SAVE GRAND AVENUE!” website. But one thing that jumped out from the home page as needing debunking is this video titled “Fire Truck Has Nowhere to Park, Blocks Grand Eastbound Traffic.” It shows a location on the stretch of Grand between Chicago Avenue (about 2900 W.) and Damen Avenue that got a Complete Streets makeover with protected bike lanes in summer 2024.

Sure, eastbound drivers have to wait for a break in westbound traffic to pass the standing firetruck. But the eastbound protected bike lane, which is basically the same width as a car parking lane, isn’t particularly to blame for this situation. If this was simply a two-lane street with parked cars on both sides, such as nearby Damen, the Grand Avenue NIMBYs wouldn’t be batting an eye about having to wait a bit to get around a stopped first responder vehicle.

Take a look at CDOT’s “Grand Avenue – Chicago to Ogden” webpage here.

Check out the “SAVE GRAND AVENUE!” website for yourself here – if you must.

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